And that’s when I notice it.
One of the rubber gloves is moving. Toward me. On the table.
I hold my breath, watching it. Waiting.
It stops millimeters from my hand, still cupping the glass.
“I can’t, you know,” he says, his voice husky, barely a whisper.
“Can’t what?” I ask, sure the earth has stopped spinning, that time is standing still.
“Resist your very sexy hands.”
He gently tugs at my wrist, compelling my hand to release the cup. I watch as his fingers travel up from the base of my thumb to my palm to my own naked fingers, until our digits become intertwined like the roots of a very old tree.
He sighs. “God, I’ve really fucked things up with Aja, haven’t I?” he breathes. He has, but he doesn’t need me to tell him that, so I don’t respond. And we just sit there, holding hands at the kitchen table like we’re some regular couple and it’s some regular Tuesday or Wednesday night in our regular apartment.
But it’s not. It’s Christmas.
My very favorite holiday.
SHAYNA’S SITTING AT the circulation desk when I get to work on Monday. Her head is bowed, a dark satin curtain of hair hiding her face, and as I get closer I see that she’s intently painting her fingernails. Black, it looks like. I don’t think she even notices me walk past her until I hear her say: “D’you hear about that blizzard coming?” She doesn’t look up. Doesn’t break the short brushstroke rhythm of her painting. “Supposed to dump like two feet of snow on us.”
“Yeah,” I say, remembering Eric’s mother said something about it.
“But it probably won’t be anything,” she says, blowing on the nails of her right hand. “Remember last year? They said the same thing—we were supposed to get, like, thirty-eight inches and we got seven.” She rolls her eyes.
“Yeah,” I say, even though I don’t remember. I go to the back room to drop my coat and bag. Maryann is sitting in her office, the door open. I give her a little wave. “How was Christmas?”
She looks at me and drops her eyes back to whatever she’s working on. “Just fine,” she says.
“Good,” I say, not expecting her to ask in return. She’s been short and irritable ever since she fired Louise, and I’ve been trying to give her a wide berth and some understanding. It can’t be easy to fire a friend—especially one you’ve been working with for so long.
THE SNOW STARTS falling right after Shayna’s shift is over at three. Just tiny flurries at first, like flecks of white rice being thrown by overzealous wedding-goers from the clouds.
Around four, I find myself staring at a snow-covered Aja. The flakes have grown exponentially—from bits of rice into fat, wet cross-sections of marshmallows—and they cling to his hair and puffy winter coat.
I nod at him, and he goes over to his computer carrel, dropping his bag.
Eric calls at five. “Hey,” he says. “The trains are a mess. Everyone’s trying to get out of the city. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“No problem,” I say. “It’s fine here. I don’t think it’s as bad as everyone says.”
Eric says something back, but the line is staticky and he gets cut off.
I hang up and look around, surprised when I realize Aja and I are the only two people left in the library. Even the pillow golfer has left.
“Hey,” I say, walking over to him. “Wanna play a game?”
He looks at me, unsure.
“C’mon,” I say. “It’ll be fun. Go get a stack of books from the shelves. Like five or ten. Any books.”
I grab some, too, and we sit on the floor in front of the circulation desk, surrounded by our selections. I pick up one of them. “OK, now I’m going to give you three sentences. Two will be ones that I made up, while one of them will be the real first sentence of the book. You have to guess which one.”
Aja gets into it, and we play for over an hour. We’re laughing so hard that I don’t even notice the door open until I hear a muffled voice shout: “Mm here! Mm here.”
I look behind me, and Eric is half bent over just inside the door and seems to be breathing heavily. It’s hard to tell, though, because he has a scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face and a hat covering the top half. In fact, his eyes are the only visible part of his body. I stand up and rush toward him, taking in his wild eyes, his heaving chest, and wonder if he might be having a heart attack.
“Are you OK? What happened?”
He straightens up and steps in a little farther, unwrapping his snowflake-covered scarf as he walks. He stops a few feet in front of me and answers my questions with his own. “Have you looked outside? It’s an honest-to-god blizzard. I had to leave my car three blocks over on Prince Street.” The lights flicker, as if punctuating his account. “Couldn’t see two inches in front of me. I’m lucky I didn’t get lost coming here.”
Curiosity propels my body toward the door. I haven’t looked outside since darkness overtook the windows an hour earlier. I peer out into the night and gasp. I can’t see the streetlight at the end of the parking lot, but the soft glow it emits is just enough to reveal a world that is bathed in white. It’s impossible to distinguish sky from snowflakes from pavement.
I narrow my eyes, trying to find the outline of my bike on the rack, not five yards from the door. “Where’s your car? We’re going to have to walk to it. In this!” I say, as if that thought hasn’t occurred to him.
He stills, eyebrows raised, the collar of his coat suspended in air midway down his back. “Uh . . . we’re not going anywhere,” he says. “Not tonight, anyway.”
It’s so ominous, like a scene straight out of a slasher flick, that a gurgle of laughter strangles my vocal cords.
Aja pipes up: “I bet the electricity is going to—”
And then it does. The lights go out, quieting Aja as if the power also controls his voice. I don’t move. It’s black as pitch, and I can’t see a thing. “Eric?” I say as I wait for my eyes to hopefully adjust and at least give me shapes and figures.
In response, a scream cuts through the darkness, so piercing, so chilling, the hair on the back of my neck stands at full attention.
twenty-one
ERIC
“AJA!” I YELL, fumbling for my cell phone. I get it out of my pocket, but it slips from my grasp and falls to the floor. The wailing continues. It sounds just like the night I tried to tell that story about Dinesh. “Are you OK? Are you hurt?”
I get on my hands and knees and feel around for it. A squeal breaks through from right above me, adding to the cacophony.
“Sorry, that’s your foot,” I say to Jubilee, moving my hand. “I’m looking for my phone.”
But I don’t know if she can hear me; Aja’s plaintive crying is so loud, it sounds like a heavy metal singer screaming directly into a microphone. In my ear.
“There!” My hand lands on the phone. Right when I pick it up and find the flashlight setting, the room falls silent.
“Aja?” I call out, swiping the flashlight mode on and shining my phone in what I think is the direction the noise was coming from. He’s not there. I sweep my phone in a slow circle, passing over Jubilee. Her eyes are wide, concerned.
“Just stay there,” I say, holding my hand up.
“I think there’s a real flashlight in the back. I’ll go look,” she says.
Well, yes, that’s probably a better idea. Except— “You won’t be able to see anything!”
“My cell phone’s on my desk,” she says.
“OK,” I say, shining the light from my phone so she can make it to the desk. Once she’s there and I’ve seen her turn on the light on her phone, I turn back to the rows of books in front of me.
“Aja, where are you? Come out right now,” I say in my best stern voice, trying to conceal the panic in it. I hear a whimper and walk forward to the stacks. I shine the light down each one, until finally, in the fourth row, I spot him, curled in a ball, his back to the books. He looks u
p at me, squinting into the light. His cheeks are wet. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he’s saying over and over. “It’s my fault.”
I rush to close the gap between us and kneel down. “What’s your fault, bud?”
“The lights! I made them go off.”
“No, no. That was the storm, the blizzard. I’m sure it downed a power line somewhere. That wasn’t you.”
I put my hand on his shoulder, but he shrugs it off, so I sit opposite him, setting the phone down so the light shines directly up toward the ceiling like a beacon in the middle of the sea. Aja’s shaking his head.
“It was me!” he yells. “It was me.” And then he starts crying again, in earnest now. “I’ve been . . . practicing . . . the wrong . . . thing,” he says, in between hiccupping sobs.
“What? Take a deep breath now, so I can understand you.”
“Where’s Jubilee?” he asks. “I want to talk to her.”
“No,” I say, scratching the day-old stubble on my chin. “No. You have to talk to me, Aja. You have to talk to me.”
He looks down but doesn’t say anything. I wait. I have no idea how much time passes, but he finally—finally—speaks. “This whole time . . . I thought . . . I was telekinetic. That’s what . . . I’ve been practicing, trying to . . . harness. But that’s not it. I control electricity . . . just like . . . Bolt.”
I squint my eyes, trying to make sense of what he’s saying, but I can’t. “Who’s Bolt?”
“One of the X-Men,” he says, and even in his state, there’s an edge of annoyance in his voice that sounds like: Seriously, you don’t know who Bolt is?
I smile, comforted by this. There’s the Aja I know.
“His real name’s Bradley and he works for Stryker.”
“Who’s Stryk—”
“The villain!” he says, cutting me off. Then he lowers his voice, as if he’s talking to himself instead of me. “Which makes sense, really. I knew I was bad. I know I’m bad. I’m the bad guy.” He starts hitting himself in the head with clenched fists.
I grab his arms. “Aja! Aja, stop it. You are not bad. You are not a bad guy. Why do you think that? Stop it! Calm down, bud.”
Aja stills his fists, but tears are falling from his eyes like a dripping faucet. I move over next to him. “You’ve got to talk to me, Aja. I’m worried about you. You have to tell me what’s going on.”
He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. “No, I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”
“Please. Please. I want to help you.”
He stops moving his head and curls in an even tighter ball, his fists tight against his cheeks. I’m worried he’s going to start hitting himself again and I reach out for his arms, but then he whispers something.
I lean closer. “What?”
“It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”
“What—the lights? No, I told you, bud, that’s from the snow. You didn’t—”
“My parents!” he shouts, causing my head to jerk an inch or two back. “It’s my fault they’re dead!”
“Your parents? No. No, Aja. How could that be your fault?”
The tears are falling faster now and I wait, my mind reeling.
“I didn’t want them to go,” he says finally. He sniffs. “Dad—” His voice cracks on the word and he tries again. “Dad . . . had promised we’d go see the new X-Men movie. It was coming out that weekend. But then he had to go on this work trip.”
“OK,” I say, encouraging him.
“So when they left, I kept thinking maybe something would happen. Maybe the plane wouldn’t be able to fly, or the weather could keep them grounded. And I kept thinking it! I didn’t stop. I kept thinking and thinking and thinking and then—and then—”
He collapses, his head hanging over his knees, his shoulders shaking. I put my arm around him tentatively, but he shrugs me off.
“I thought I must be telekinetic,” he says in a small voice, “and that I needed to learn how to control it so I didn’t hurt anyone else.”
“So that’s why you’ve been practicing this whole time?”
He nods.
“But now I think it’s electricity. I must have shut down the engine control on the plane, just like I accidentally turned off the lights tonight.”
“Aja,” I say, grabbing both his shoulders and squaring him toward me.
“Don’t touch me!” he screams.
“Sorry!” I say. “I’m sorry.”
I wait for him to calm down, to look at me, and then I continue: “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but . . . you don’t have any superpowers. What happened on that plane—”
“You don’t believe me! You never believe me! My dad . . . he always believed me.” His fists clench again.
“No, I don’t believe you,” I say, and his head jerks up at me, anger flashing in his eyes.
“But,” I say, more gently, “I do believe in you. And I believe—no, I know—you didn’t cause that plane to crash. Nobody did. It’s just something that happened. A really shitty, terrible thing that happened, but it’s nobody’s fault.”
He looks at me skeptically. I know he’s not completely convinced, that he still probably hates me a little for being the reason they were on the plane in the first place. But I still hate me a little for that too, so we’re even.
Aja’s wet eyes glisten in the light of the iPhone. “You said ‘shitty,’ ” he says, sniffling.
I nod. “I did.”
“We’re not supposed to say that word.”
“I know. But honestly? Sometimes it’s the only word that works.”
JUBILEE DIDN’T FIND a flashlight, but she did find two blankets in her boss’s office. We set up camp in the children’s section, using my phone’s flashlight setting as a campfire of sorts. I folded one of the blankets over itself as a mattress for Aja and draped the other on top of him, even though I thought Jubilee should keep it for herself. “I’ll be fine,” she said, waving me away. “I’m wearing thermal underwear.”
I smiled at her, even though she couldn’t really see me in the dark. “Are you trying to seduce me?” I asked, under my breath, so Aja couldn’t hear.
A round laugh erupted from her.
Now I tuck the blanket all around him, grateful Jubilee was so selfless, as his tiny body is already shivering a little. I hope it will be enough to keep him warm through the night.
Jubilee and I sit close to the iPhone, but not to each other. There are a few feet of space between us and I long to close the gap, my mind conjuring excuses, plausible reasons I need to be nearer to her. We talk softly about the blizzard, trying to predict how much snow will fall before it’s all said and done. We keep it light so as not to scare Aja, though I can tell Jubilee is worried.
When we sense his steady breathing and I’m sure he’s asleep, I turn to Jubilee. “Did you hear everything?” I ask.
She nods. “Most of it. So he’s thought for the past two years that he was responsible for his parents’ death?”
“Yeah,” I say, hanging my head. I feel guilty for not trying to talk to him about his parents sooner, for not asking the right questions. But it’s all out now, and for that I’m relieved.
She brings her hand up to her heart. “That sweet boy.”
“I know.”
We both stare at the light. “I wish that was a real campfire. It’s freezing in here.” She rubs her gloved hands together.
I nod. “We could do jumping jacks. Doesn’t getting your blood circulating help or something?”
“It’s better to get naked.”
My head jerks toward her, not sure I heard her right. “What?”
She shrugs. “If two people are stuck out in cold weather—say camping or something—you’re supposed to take all your clothes off and hold each other under a blanket or sleeping bag. The more skin-to-skin contact, the better, so you can transfer body heat to each other.”
My lips feel dry and I realize my mouth is hanging
open. I try to push the picture of an unclothed Jubilee out of my mind but find it’s a difficult task. Then another thought hits me and I start laughing.
“What’s funny?”
“It’s just ironic,” I say. “The one thing that could keep you from dying if you ever get hypothermia could kill you.”
She chuckles.
“Better never go camping,” I say. I mean it as a joke, but as the silence stretches out, I wish I hadn’t said it. I’m just reminding her of one more thing she can’t do, as if she doesn’t know. And then I wonder if she knows what I want to do but can’t. If she knows that just being near her steals my breath, that I dream of my hands in her hair, that touching her skin with my bare hand—even just the crease of her elbow—would be the definition of joy. And then I can’t keep it inside any longer.
“I want to touch you,” I breathe. She doesn’t respond. We both stare at the light, as if it is a campfire. Minutes tick past, and I wonder if I actually said it out loud, or if I should try saying it again.
And then she speaks. “There might be a . . . treatment.”
I suck in my breath. “Really?”
She nods but still won’t make eye contact. I wait for her to say more, everything suddenly slowing down. My motions feel sluggish, my heart the pace of a ninety-four-year-old’s footsteps.
“Dr. Zhang—my doctor—the allergy expert in New York. She wants to try immunotherapy.”
She briefly explains what it is and how it could take a year, if not more, just to isolate the protein she’s allergic to.
I take this in, my heart nearly coming to a full stop when I open my mouth to ask this question. I don’t know why it feels like the entire balance of life hangs on it, but it does. I swallow. “Are you going to do it?”
She doesn’t answer right away. The air is so still, I can hear the quiet inhale and exhale of her breathing. My phone chimes, making us both jump.
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